When Does the Race End?

By Zex Liu / Winter 2023

Dear younger me,

Hello, the younger Zex. How are you doing? I hope this finds you well. This is you at 21 years old writing back to you at 2 AM in the morning in the library. I guess right now you are staying up working hard for grades, right? I know you really don't like someone to bother you when you are in the middle of your work, but this is something quite important, please allow me to use a few minutes of your time to speak a few words to you.

Perhaps first of all I should let you know why I haven't slept this late at night. Guess what, same as you, working for assignments, striving for a good grade. I know you must be shocked hearing this, because this isn't the story we've been told, that isn't something we were dreaming for. When we were young, we were told by our parents that if we work hard, it will grant us the ability to pursue happiness. Same for school, if we finish your homework then we can freely play whatever we want. If we work hard, that will set up the path to success and relaxing life. However, middle school is different from what we expected to be. So we told ourselves, perhaps we are just too far away from the ending road of success. I remember that one night you struggled to solve a tricky problem, you were so tilted, you go like” fuck the school, I just want to be an adult as soon as possible so I dont have anymore homework”. So you work even harder with the promise that doing well in highschool that will secure you for a good college, where you will find lots of fun.

Unfortunately, I am sorry to tell you that it is a myth. This isn't true if we believe in competitive individualism. Not saying you are still striving for a good grade; We go to college because we believe through the 4 years it will guide us to be professional in our area of interests. If we don't go through the process, rules and tears, and work hard to keep a good GPA, then we won't get a job in our dream career. Later in our stages of our life, we chase after money, romance, a good house; that's why people want to work hard and study hard, so we can have a comfortable and peaceful life. At the end of the day, we don't want to fall behind in chasing the material wealths, so we push ourselves to work harder and harder.

I am sure you and I have been always wondering “when does this race end?” because one day our energy is going to run out, our body just can't afford anymore of this. Shall we just work hard non-stop and don't know whether what we are chasing is meaningful or not? Honestly I don't have a clear answer to this, perhaps you and I have too little experience to speak for this. But I know for sure that four years of college isn't the end of this race. Our parents struggle to find the answer too. Even Though our parents had an okay career, made some money; they have lots of money saved up, in case an emergency needs to pay for medical bills. They still don't feel secure and happy enough. we just can't control our life. A lot of the time we just followed everyone else, getting a job, studying hard, living a long life; very much like the rats joining others waiting in front of the black friday sale store. Fighting with each other for the goods of “ happiness”.

Can material wealth satisfy us?  Well, material wealth is being portrayed as the ways to gain happiness. Where does that ideology come from? Throughout history an enormous amount of stories and propaganda associated wealth and happiness. The misconception of “more wealth you accumulate, you will have less worries, more pleasure” is embedded in our blood. This dominant ideology allows the elite to rationalize their behavior. Within the system structured in this way, we are working hard for money to exchange for happiness. Although this in a sense gave us some incentive to work hard, we don't know what is the meaning for this. In school, we are incentivised to work hard so we can end up in a high skill professional job. It seems like life is better if there are instructions, but the instruction is material wealth. When we do this, we gain non-stop hard work for nothing except for little hope to move toward higher social order. That helps me realize that even though you can do everything to make yourself look perfect outside, you have jobs, lots of money, but it is like the gilded self, they take away our right to pursue happiness, our heart actually feels lonely.

What we are missing out here is the real substance of life and relationships. We need to live our own life but not run our life for others. I have heard many, many stories. Oftentimes only when people are older enough, They come to realize “I feel kind of bad, I could have done so much investing all my time with family and relationship.” Jobs and majors may seem very important, in the end they can't buy more time to spend with family members; they block our vision to see who we are. But then, how much better life would be if we know what life is about, what we truly are, not pursuing material goods. Maybe we didn't do as we were dreaming when we were young, we can look at that and be like; even though we are not as high up as other people, we are actually much happier. Having more money makes us work harder, it doesn't always fulfill us. Although we still need to make money and survive.

I hope what I learned and my experience speaks to you.

Sincerely,

The older me